Commission Progress (WIP Wednesday)
Michael MacWolff
Welcome back everyone! I know I’m supper sporadic with posting here but I do have some progress updates on the commissions I’ve been working on that I wanted to share!
Let’s start with the projects you’ve already seen the beginnings of:
Silas’s armor is coming along nicely, though unfortunately I’ve run out of worbla so I can’t make any more sections until that arrives.
Next up, Opal’s bow is done with construction and I’ve started painting. The gradient painting is a huge pain in the ass but it does look pretty cool.
Now, on to new projects which I’ve somehow magically gotten further on than the stuff you’ve already seen! I’ve started working on Yuna’s staff from FFX. It’s the staff you traditionally see her with in all of the official artwork.
For the head, I used 1/4” MDF and thick craft foam to make the little blue details on the gold head. The shaft is a wooden broom handle I got at Home Depot.
The blade on my scroll saw broke in the middle of trying to cut the staff head out, which was slightly terrifying. Thankfully neither me nor the prop was hurt, I just had to finish cutting it out with my jigsaw instead.
Here’s the head all painted! Next step is to paint the shaft blue but I haven’t gotten to that yet.
The last new item on my list is Atalanta’s bow from Fate/Apocrypha! I’m making this for a friend of mine and we’ll be cosplaying together at Youmacon.
Much like Opal’s bow, the base is wood with a section of broom handle as the grip. Despite the overall shape of the bow being a little more intricate, this actually took way less time to put together than the other bow because it didn’t involve two layers of wood together (which took a LOT of sanding to even out) and the weird round spiral bit that also took a lot of time and work to get fit together and looking right.
The raised details are all made from either craft foam or cereal box… you can probably tell from the photo above which sections are which ;-)
The bits around the grip are covered with worbla scraps that I heated up and mushed together.
With the details done, all there was left to do was paint and add the bowstring. The simple black & gold color scheme is what really made the difference as far as time spent detailing compared to the other bow I’m working on.
And that’s all the commission work I’ve gotten done recently. I was out of town all last week visiting friends and going to my brother-in-law’s wedding so I was not as productive as usual. This week I’m aiming to get Yuna’s staff and Opal’s bow done so keep an eye on my instagram to see more progress photos! I’ve also been working on my new cosplay for Youmacon which is mostly done at this point, so I’ll be posting again later this week or some time next week with all the photos and construction notes on that!